Candidate guest column: Arn Menconi

Editor’s note: The Post Independent is running a series of guest columns from the three Democrats seeking the nomination in Tuesday’s primary election to run for the 3rd District Congressional seat. Saturday it’s Arn Menconi, followed by Karl Hanlon on Sunday and Diane Mitsch Bush on Monday.

—

Follow the money and you see who and what runs America. What are the federal government’s five biggest benefactors?

1. Finance & banking

2. Military and security complex

3. Oil and gas

Support Local Journalism

4. Big pharma

5. Big agriculture

I have an MBA. I ran a $3 million-a-year charity for 10 years. I worked for savings-and-loans when they existed. I was one of three Eagle County commissioners overseeing a $100 million budget.

Who runs America is a math problem: Look at the most money coming in and the most going out, and then go back five, 10 and 20 years, and see who is getting the big bucks.

We don’t have representatives representing sovereignty of the United States and its people; we have representatives representing multinational corporations without borders. Their business plan, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, is simple:

1. Deregulate

2. Privatize

3. Spend on military hardware

4. Cut taxes for the corporations and super rich.

5. Indemnify themselves and the corporations from prosecution.

This results in: endless wars for profit; environmental destruction; further and further inequality; oppression and racism to people of color.

So it is that America is an empire in decline. I ask you to apply your moral conscience and ask yourself if the number of people being killing in endless wars, minorities being incarcerated and refugees is going up disproportionately. If the answer is yes, then you understand what the powers that be don’t what you to focus on. That we are unconscious to the killing and oppression of our system.

There are moral consequences to apathy, neglect, ignorance and selfishness. We have been given a great responsibility as Americans. Anyone can bitch and moan. Few, if any, can fight with righteous indignation for change; not later, not in 2020, not when you have more resources, but now.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned, the white moderate who prefers the absence of tension over the presence of justice is our greatest stumbling block.

Our political and financial systems are rigged to represent the 1 percent, and that is the injustice. I will fight for you in Washington. I’ve asked voters all over District 3 if they think they live in an oligarchy, and over a third of the people at 12 forums the candidates have held have said yes.

Heck, a Princeton University study in 2014 reported America is an oligarchy. I want to be a representative who goes after the problem and not the symptom.

I have been lobbying, working and protesting in Washington, D.C. since 2001. Over the last four years, I’ve been there a dozen times. We need someone who started and has grown both a nonprofit and for-profit business and been elected twice to represent the people, not the powerful. I have business experience that the other candidates don’t. I’m the only candidate to say “impeach Trump now” before he turns the U.S. into an authoritarian state.

I’m someone who fights with the urgency of now instead of explaining how we will use incrementalism. When I started my nonprofit in 1993 for minority kids, I never realized it would grow to a national charity that would serve more than 60,000 kids in more than nine states. I believe that we must give back for our children’s children. I don’t have hope, I have two young kids and I fight for them and all children before it’s too late.

When you give up, they win. Help elect a true activist to Congress. Find out more at arnmenconi.com.

Support Local Journalism

Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.

Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage.